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Fastest Scanner? For Text Only, USB or Firewire, <$200

S

seannon

Junior Member
Hi All!

I am a student who needs to scan a lot of book chapters and articles to pdf for a prof. So I need a good scanner recommendation. I am having a lot of trouble finding good scanner reviews for such purposes. Most reviews focus on photo scanning, and give test-speeds for photos only.

My criteria:
1. Most important: fast, fast, fast for text at 300dpi or so (or whatever you guys recommend for books). 10 seconds or less if possible.
2. Good OCR program (I hear omnipage is the best).
3. Bundled with "scan to pdf" function (can photoshp essentials do this?). We already have Acrobat 5.0 Pro.
4. USB 2.0 or firewire.
5. Under $200
6. Flatbed for the books.

I'd give up 2, 3, 4 & 5 for 1 (speed).

Thanks in Advance!
Shannon
 
I don't think you will find a scanner with all of those critera. Here are some ideas to help tackle the problem:

1) If you want to focus on speed, you need to get a high-speed scanner made for this purpose. Unfortunately, they cost way more than $200, and don't have USB or Firewire interfaces, but SCSI interfaces. You can find these on E-bay used for less than $200 sometimes. Do a search for "High Speed Scanner". Ricoh and Fujitsu are some of the more common brands.

2) However, any speed advantage that you are looking for will be shot if you are trying to digitize page-at a time from a book, since the scanning head will have to reset and calibrate every time, probably a minimum of 20 seconds a page. My suggestion is to either photocopy everything up front, then use a ADF (automatic document feed) scanner on the photocopies. Or, if you have a copy of the book that you can sacrifice, then just take apart the pages at the binding and scan that in. This way, you don't really care how long it takes to scan in. HP has some scanners with ADF's you can find used for about $60-$100 dollars with USB interfaces.

3) As for scanning, I would avoid using plain PDF's. My suggestion is to get a copy of PaperPort by ScanSoft Corp. This software, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated pieces of software, and would probably be better for document management and research than plain PDF's. It also comes with it's own OCR (same company that makes Omnipage), and comes with a PDF maker in the Professional Version, if you really need PDF's. It can also handle the flatbed and ADF scanning needs with no problem, as well as convert to OCR and index the results.

DanceMan
 
Originally posted by: DanceMan
I don't think you will find a scanner with all of those critera. Here are some ideas to help tackle the problem:

1) If you want to focus on speed, you need to get a high-speed scanner made for this purpose. Unfortunately, they cost way more than $200, and don't have USB or Firewire interfaces, but SCSI interfaces. You can find these on E-bay used for less than $200 sometimes. Do a search for "High Speed Scanner". Ricoh and Fujitsu are some of the more common brands.

2) However, any speed advantage that you are looking for will be shot if you are trying to digitize page-at a time from a book, since the scanning head will have to reset and calibrate every time, probably a minimum of 20 seconds a page. My suggestion is to either photocopy everything up front, then use a ADF (automatic document feed) scanner on the photocopies. Or, if you have a copy of the book that you can sacrifice, then just take apart the pages at the binding and scan that in. This way, you don't really care how long it takes to scan in. HP has some scanners with ADF's you can find used for about $60-$100 dollars with USB interfaces.

3) As for scanning, I would avoid using plain PDF's. My suggestion is to get a copy of PaperPort by ScanSoft Corp. This software, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated pieces of software, and would probably be better for document management and research than plain PDF's. It also comes with it's own OCR (same company that makes Omnipage), and comes with a PDF maker in the Professional Version, if you really need PDF's. It can also handle the flatbed and ADF scanning needs with no problem, as well as convert to OCR and index the results.

DanceMan
Click to expand...

Definitely
 
Thanks guys. I think you are right. If I could use an ADF, they would be ideal. Unfortunately...

Much of this work will be done at my home, from big books. I'll be reading and when I find the right page or two, I scan them in. So my main concern is to have a fast scanner for a couple book pages at a time. Budget is small. I was looking at the Canon LiDE80. It's cheap and has good software. One review said it is 16 seconds for a text page ( http://www.eospix.com/reviews-8.html ). Any thoughts?

Best,
Shannon
 
I don't scan text, but I'll assume a page of text will scan faster then a full color picture. I have an Epson 1200U. Got it off Ebay for 30 bucks shipped (they normally go for around $100 on there, when you find them) it can do 8x10 600DPI pics in about 18 seconds. This thing should scream with text. It also has an autodoc feeder, I bet you could pick up both for around 150 if you look.
 
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